Appeal No. 2006-1618
Application No. 10/046,797
have not been considered and are deemed to be waived [see 37 CFR
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004)].
We first consider the rejection of claims 1, 2, 10, 12, 16, 18, 25-27, 29,
and 33-36 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Kim and Suzuki. Regarding
independent claims 1 and 33, the examiner's rejection essentially finds that Kim
teaches every claimed feature except for detecting individual contours
responsive to respective user input [non-final rejection, pages 3 and 4]. The
examiner cites Suzuki as disclosing a motion picture apparatus where a user
picks points adjacent boundary locations to detect a contour. The examiner finds
that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
invention to modify Kim to respond to user input to specify a portion of an image
to separate [non-final rejection, page 4].
Appellant argues that there is no motivation to combine the references.
Appellant contends that Kim and Suzuki are directed towards entirely different
systems and methods that achieve different results and solutions for different
problems [brief, page 6; reply brief, pages 3 and 4]. Specifically, appellant notes
that Kim discloses a method of representing a contour of an object for a video
signal encoder. Suzuki, however, identifies a contour for extracting an object
from an image frame of a motion picture for subsequent editing. According to
appellant, modifying Kim to accept user input as taught by Suzuki as asserted by
the examiner would not only increase complexity, but also slow Kim's encoding
process unacceptably [brief, pages 6 and 7].
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